In Case You Missed It

I was quoted from my post on Jan. 25 in Computerworld.com's IT Blog Watch.

Here is the link. Scroll down and click on my name to read my blog post.

Hard Drive going Kaput?

The hard drive machine that I am running FreeBSD on has been making some clicking sounds for quite some. The clicking is not nearly as loud (and has not become louder) as the Seagate drive that went belly-up on me last year but I still decided to back everything up and pull the drive. In the interim, I'll use the other machine, which is running Slackware, as my backup server. While I am a Linux enthusiast, I do prefer FreeBSD to Slackware. I think the clincher for me is the package manager and FreeBSD ports collection. Installing packages under FreeBSD is really straightforward and rivals, in my opinion, Arch Linux's pacman in ease of use and functionality.

274

Gory

Al Gore has been in the news, sort of, during the past week. I say "sort of" because the media gives him some press but doesn't ask any questions about why he scorns the U.S. when he's on foreign soil or how much he gets paid for, to paraphrase Michael Corleone, "taking sides against the family." Questions about Gore's affairs seem to be taboo. The MSM can't seem to find the space to insert some cartoons but they have no problem giving postive press to Gore's "you are right to hate America, we are bad people" platform.

I heard a caller call in to a nationally syndicated radio show and he made a comment about Gore and attributed Gore's frequent diatribes to the fact that he had to share the Vice-Presidency with Hillary for eight years. Now, that's funny!

197

Happy Birthday, Abe!

This will be Buried on Page A26 Somewhere

In the news today it's been reported that in 1977 President Carter authorized warrantless wiretaps on two men suspected of spying for Vietnam. Turn in to CBS News or CNN or check out one of the Left-wing blogs or the NY Times for more on this startling revelation about a former Democratic president.

Yes, this did occur before FISA but the article also says that Jamie Goerlick, Deputy Attorney General under Clinton, said that the President does have authority to conduct warrantless searches "for foreign intelligence purposes." Stay tuned to CNN or MSNBC today for more on this, er, um, wait, nevermind.

Antipathetic

In spite of all the intolerance of those Danish cartoons, we should also remember the commotion over Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in 1988. The book was banned in several countries, there were protests and book-burnings, and a 'hit' was even ordered on Rushdie by the leader of Iran. I remember thinking at the time that I wondered how many of the protesters had actually read the book before declaring it blasphemous. The intolerance even spread to the U.S. where protesters at UC Berkeley threw a pipe bomb at a bookstore that was selling the book. It is important to remember that even America is not immune from such behavior. Freedom of Speech is fine as long as you don't sell any books that a certain group doesn't agree with. However, rioting and burning things down seems to be acceptable.

First it's books, now it's cartoons that the intolerant use as an excuse to riot. Sometimes the best way to bring out someone's true colors is to dumb things down a bit.

Here we go...

Super Sunday is upon us and I'll be rooting for the Steelers. Ten years ago I was still living in Pittsburgh. I watched the game at Bloom's Cigar in the Southside. I know if they would have won I would have seen a lot of interesting things happening on Carson Street that night. Tonight, I'll be watching it at home and, thankfully, not subject to being stuck on the Southside for the remainder of the evening if they win. Ten years ago that would have been fun but I'm too old for that stuff now.

My pick: Steelers 23, Seahawks 20.

Who do you want to censor today?

As summoned to do like an obedient servant, Microsoft, as ordered requested by the Chinese government, has pulled the blog of a Chinese journalist. From the article:

China last year started tightening its control over Internet services, but has yet to launch a major crackdown on bloggers. Experts believe the government is still struggling with media control without stymieing the country's emerging Internet businesses. China is the second largest Internet market, and is growing quickly.

So, like a knight in shining armor, Microsoft has come to the rescue of a government that wants to, but cannot, censor every blog. Way to go! Who says that Americans cannot solve all the world's problems! You would think that the government of a country with 1.3 billion people can deal with their own "problems" without American interference.

Beijing is smart. They know if they "launch a major crackdown on bloggers" the international community - other nations - would frown on such a thing. The government would "look bad" and that could hinder international investments. However, if they order make a polite request to the companies who make the software and host the blogs, then Beijing can simply say "we asked, and they pulled it, we did not pull it." The world sees the "bad guy" as the company that obeys (follows the law) and not the Chinese government. Hasn't the "we were just following the laws"¹ excuse been tried before?



¹ Change "the laws" to "orders" to illustrate the allusion.